Outdoor athletic playing fields, such as playing fields used for football, baseball, soccer or the like, require periodic application of boundary or market lines in order to define the limits of the playing field and subareas thereof. Such lines are usually made by applying white chalk or paint to a selected area.
It has been found that applying white chalk or paint to a strip of grass is relatively ineffective in that the white chalk will filter down through the grass and the white paint will soon be lost through repeated growth and cutting of the grass. It therefore becomes necessary to remove the grass and other foreign matter down to the surface of the earth before applying the chalk or paint line pigment.
Conventionally, this area has been somewhat inadequately prepared by edgers and the like. One conventional device has a plurality of rotating cutter blades that clear out a swatch of grass and, by moving the apparatus forward, clear out a strip or line so that paint or chalk may be deposited thereafter. The conventional device has however proved unsatisfactory for several reasons.
First, the conventional device employs a cutter head which is offset, in the usual manner for an edger or like device, from the line of sight of the operator. This makes it difficult for the operator to cut a straight line in the turf, as is usually necessary when marking athletic field lines. Even where the desired athletic field line is curved instead of straight, the path of an offset line cutter is still difficult to conform to the desired path, as the operator has only an imprecise idea as to whether his guiding efforts are successful.
Second, the rotary cutter blades of the conventional device have a tendency to slip from their desired positions so that the cutter blades are no longer angularly spaced apart from each other. When a series of elongate cutter blades slip until they are in alignment with each other, the result is an unsatisfactory removal of grass from the desired surface and an uneven, jerky movement of the device.
Third, the conventional device has no means of stopping the operation of the cutter blades while the engine is idling. Thus, with the conventional device, it is necessary to shut off the motor or other drive means in order to inspect or adjust the cutter head assembly.
In view of the above problems with the conventional device, there exists a need for a line cutting apparatus with which the operator may effectively cut a straight line or conform the progress of the apparatus to a predetermined curve. Further, there exists a need for a line cutting apparatus whose elongate blades will stay in one position and will remain in positions that are angularly spaced from each other on the cutter head axle. Finally, there exists a need for a line cutting apparatus that provides means to stop the operation of the cutter blades while its source of power is still idling.